Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Jackie's raving about...

I don't think I can find the words for how very much I loved this book. McNees worked from several biographies and Alcott's own journals to create this fictionalized account of a rumored love affair that the intensely private L.M.A. covered up. In these pages blooms the walking, talking inspirations for the characters in Little Women and some of Alcott's other books. It is at once very familiar and very new, and every page was riveting for me--I lost a lot of sleep to this book. I felt the echo of my much younger self, that girl who marveled at her first (but not her last) reading of Little Women and then her voracious consumption of all things Alcott one muggy Ohio summer. Louisa May Alcott was an amazing if rather brittle woman, and this book shows her in all of her complexity. I simply cannot recommend this book enough.

Anyone who loves Melanie Benjamin's Alice I Have Been should read this book.

--Jackie

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

that sounds amazing, after reading American Bloomsbury last year I've been wanting something about that world which was a little more story like. I'm adding it to my reading list!